An open-top load body is used especially for bulk goods, but also for other goods that can be loaded from above. In many cases, those goods are sensitive to moisture, however, or can easily be blown away by the relative wind produced during travel. For that reason, cover arrangements, usually formed by sliding or roll-up tarpaulins, are used in many cases. It is, however, a laborious procedure to draw such tarpaulins over the load opening, since the mechanism often jams and/or is obstructed by the load. Valuable time may be lost in that way in the case of sudden downpours or hailstorms.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,233 B2 describes first of all, as prior art, a cover arrangement that consists of two roof segments and that can be pivoted between a closed position and an open position, each roof segment being rigidly connected to a drive shaft in the region of the upper longitudinal edges of the side walls. The drive shafts are driven via a chain drive that is to be operated by hand. That pivoting mechanism is regarded in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,223 B2 as being relatively cumbersome and unfavourable, however, and therefore it is proposed as an alternative that the two roof segments be operated via four link rods in each case, two link rods in each case being rigidly connected to a respective drive shaft.
A vehicle having a pivoting mechanism in accordance with the preamble of claim 1 is furthermore known from DE 10 2007 043 818 B4.